Peter Leonard - All He Saw Was the Girl

"Get your hand off me." She said it loud.

People were turning, looking at them. "Take it easy, will you? Jesus. Everything's going to be fine." He tried to smile but it was tough 'cause he was pissed off now. She'd never acted like this and he was trying to figure out what was going on. "Listen, straighten out. Cut the bullshit. You're coming with me. You're going to get on that fucking train if I have to carry you."

They were still thirty feet away when Ray saw Joey holding her arms, her biceps. It seemed like they were having a fight. Seeing it sent a blast of adrenalin through him. He'd followed Joey down the Spanish Steps, over the wall to the apartment balcony, through the apartment and across town, losing him in traffic and then seeing his taxi pull up in front of the train station.

Joey was pulling her and Sharon was resisting when Ray got to them. Joey saw him and let her go, and now they were squaring off.

"Come to save the little woman?" Joey said. "I think you're too late."

Sharon looked embarrassed, caught with her boyfriend unexpectedly, and the scene was ugly.

"What're you doing with him?" Ray said to Sharon. "You like being treated this way?"

"I'm not with him," Sharon said. "It's over."

"It's over when I say it is," Joey said.

"You remind me of your father," Ray said. "Same tough- guy attitude with nothing to back it up."

That stopped Joey, got him thinking.

"What're you talking about? You didn't know my old man."

"I met the little guy one night at his house in Bloomfield. We were in that nice paneled room with the fireplace off the foyer. Know the one I'm talking about?" He paused. "I asked him where you were and he said he didn't know. Imagine that? I said okay, you don't want to talk, I'll go upstairs see if Mrs P wants to be more co-operative. Your little Mafia dad threatened me. Got all worked up. I thought he was going to take a swing. Then he leaned back against the desk, a strange look on his face, grabbed his chest and fell on the floor and died."

Joey glared at him.

"I was surprised you weren't at the wake or funeral. What kind of son are you, you don't come to your father's grave, pay your respects?"

Joey made his move, came at him as expected, threw a big right hand Ray blocked instinctively with his left, his bad arm, and felt the pain shoot up through his shoulder. Joey followed with a left hook Ray blocked with his right, and threw Joey over his hip and saw him land on his back on the hard floor, dazed, turning his body, trying to get up.

"My God," Sharon said. "You're bleeding."

She looked at his arm while Joey got back on his feet. Blood had soaked through the bandage and through his shirt and sport coat, dripping on the tile floor. He could feel a dull throb. "I'm okay."

Joey pulled a gun now, eyes wild, and the people around them shrieked and moved back, moved away.

Sharon stepped in front of Ray and said, "What're you going to do? You shoot him you're going to have to shoot me. Put it down."

"You're coming with me," Joey said.

Sharon didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Four GIS in dark-blue fatigues appeared, aiming automatic weapons, shouting firm commands in Italian. Joey dropped the Beretta and they cuffed his hands behind his back and took him away. That's what happened when you pulled a gun in a public place in a country on terrorist alert.

They each gave police a statement, and thirty minutes later Ray walked Sharon back through the train station and they went outside and stood looking at each other as cars drove up and people passed by with their luggage.

"You going to tell me what's going on?" Ray said.

"I took a vacation," she said. "It's been a while."

"That's it, huh?" His mouth was dry. He ran his tongue over his teeth, shifted his weight, put his hands in his pockets. "How long have you been seeing him?"

"Ray, what're you doing here?"

"You disappeared."

"You did too," Sharon said.

"I know and I'm sorry."

"You're about three years too late."

"Well I've got time now," Ray said. "I quit the Service."

She gave him a puzzled look. "You serious?"

He nodded.

"You think it's going to make a difference?" Sharon said.

"You tell me."

"You really quit, huh?" She shook her head. "I don't believe it." She smiled now, and he did too.

It was a start.

Early afternoon, McCabe was glancing out the window at the rolling hills of Lazio, Angela driving the Lancia, smoking a cigarette, window cracked a couple inches, wind at high speed rustling her hair. She took a final drag and pushed the cigarette through the opening and closed the window.

He was replaying the conversation he'd had with Captain Arturo Ferrara, the captain saying, why didn't you tell me you were in trouble?

It was complicated. What could he say? I kidnapped Angela Gennaro and used her to collect the ransom. He couldn't say that so he didn't say anything.

Captain Ferrara said, "I still do not understand. How you recover the money?"

"All I can tell you is it worked out," McCabe said, waiting for the captain to give him a hard time, demand the truth and confiscate the ransom.

He said, "Are you Catholic?"

"Yes," McCabe said, although he hadn't been to mass in three years, confession in five.

"God was looking out for you, uh?" the captain said.

They were at carabinieri headquarters in downtown Rome, the captain loose and relaxed, McCabe sitting across the desk from him, listening to music that sounded like opera. He could see an iPod in a speaker dock on the credenza behind him.

Captain Ferrara packed his pipe with tobacco and lit it, blowing out sweet-smelling smoke that drifted over the table.

"Will you return to the university?"

"My scholarship's been revoked," McCabe said. "Mr Rady kicked me out. I go back there I'll probably get in a fight with him."

"I can speak to him for you."

"I appreciate the offer, but I don't think so."

"What will you do?"

"I'm not sure."

"It is unfortunate you cannot stay in Rome."

McCabe wanted to tell him about Angela, tell him he'd been hit by the lightning bolt, and they were living together, but he obviously couldn't. Ferrara puffed on his pipe. They talked about Chip. He'd gotten out of the hospital, hand in a cast and was back at school. They talked about Mazara and his gang, arrested and in custody in Rebibbia Prison, awaiting trial, all except Psuz, who was killed by GIS marksmen. Nothing about Joey Palermo. The conversation ended. Captain Ferrara stood up and they shook hands.

He looked McCabe in the eye. "I can trust you with the money?"

"I was thinking of buying a villa in Tuscany." McCabe said it straight, then broke into a grin and now Captain Ferrara did too.

"Tell me where, I will visit you." He paused. "Keep the money in Banco de Roma until you transfer it."

McCabe had to admit that made more sense than hiding it in Angela's closet.

Now an hour and a half later, he and Angela were approaching her father's estate outside Mentana. He was going to ask the most powerful man in Rome for the missing ransom, the sixty thousand euros Mazara had given him. There was a car blocking the entrance and half a dozen men with guns, standing around. "What's going on? Looks like a scene from The Godfather," McCabe said.

"Someone broke in last night," Angela said. "My father has tightened security."

The guards recognized Angela, opened the gates and moved the car and now they were on a pea-gravel driveway that wound through the woods to the villa. Angela parked on the circular drive in front of the house. She turned off the car and looked at McCabe.

"What are you going to say to him?"

"I'll think of something," McCabe said.